Batman & Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #18

Hank explores different ways of understanding identity – including the Indiscernibility of Identicals, and essential and accidental properties. In what ways does affect identity? In what ways does it not? What does it mean for a thing to persist over time?

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[bartzrt]

I'd like to think Hank made this entire episode because Nick broke his favorite mug.

[mightybeastofbengal]

I feel like Hank could become the actual Riddler.

[acapellascience]

If my friend doesn't notice that I've replaced his mushroom, does that make it a fungible fungus?

[Graybat]

Here's a thought experiment regarding fungibility:
Think back to Spongebob. Mr. Krabs has his first dollar up on the wall. In painting Mr. Krabs's house, Spongebob and Patrick get paint on his first dollar. Seeing the damage, Spongebob gets the dollar and hides it. He then gets a dollar out of his wallet and puts it in the exact same place so Mr. Krabs won't notice. Mr. Krabs returns home and several months pass, and Mr. Krabs maintains his sentimental value for his new "first dollar." Spongebob discovers a way to wash off the paint from the true first dollar. After doing this, he returns to Mr. Krabs and tells him the truth, but Mr. Krabs doesn't believe him, maintaining that the fake is his "first dollar."

Here even sentimental properties are completely interchangeable with identical items. What makes the first dollar a first dollar is not any actual properties but just the sentiment attached to it. The dollar is just a placeholder and any placeholder would do.

[Rahel_Rashid]

"Change is the only constant"
-Heraclitus

[dh]

Please never stop making these philosophy videos. I'm hooked.

[SbotTV]

Lumpl is the medium, Goliath is the shape. When Lumpl is formed into Goliath, Lumpl does not cease to exist. Rather, it exists on a lower level than Goliath. A notebook is also a kind of shape, and it can be composed of dead trees. Batman is a shape, and his medium is primarily Bruce Wayne, and sometimes other people. The Ship of Theseus is a shape, and it takes place on a medium of crew members, planks, and sails.

Focusing on the Ship of Theseus, we can define the 'shape' of the ship as a sort of 'goal' its constituent pieces work towards. Of course, that goal can change over time, but it is still technically the same. Shapes can be transformed, yet still be considered the same figure. If the ship were to, let's say, experience a mutiny, that would change its shape, but we would still consider it the same ship. If a person changes his or her mind about something, we don't consider that individual to be a new person. The tricky part occurs when Theseus orders an identical ship to be made in the other's absence. What is the difference between the first ship and the copy? To answer this, we can think of the new ship as an independent shape from the original. While the old ship and the copy might, at one point, have an identical shape, there is nothing to stop them from diverging; they are independent.

A shape-medium perspective can be applied to everything. An atom is a shape taking place in a medium of subatomic particles, a molecule is a shape taking place in a medium of atoms, a cell is a shape taking place in a medium of molecules, a neural tissue is a shape taking place in a medium of cells, and you are a shape taking place in a medium of neural tissue. I'm not sure who came up with this first, but it is my world view.

[_in_the_afternoon]

Don't worry about your identity.
We are all bat people.

[bentoth]

What I learned is to be suspicious if you ever let Hank dog-sit for you.

[sonicx]

Holy moses I wasn't expecting you to actually reference Batman from an educated position. When you layed down the Batman & Robin Reborn and the recent Superheavy arc, I was thoroughly impressed!

[suspiciousflamingpyro]

I think identity is purely subjective. That ship is only the Ship of Theseus if you think it is. You can not put an object under a microscope to find what physically gives its identity. Like beauty or goodness, identity is something we assign to objects and people.

[imagine]

Okay but what about Hannah Montana and Miley Stewart um who's gonna ask the real question here

[milolee]

I just want to express to all of you at Crash Course how much I love your videos, especially the videos on philosophy. Every Monday whether it be a school morning or a summertime afternoon, I always look forward to the philosophy videos. It is the best way to start a day and has become a Monday ritual. Thank you

[Arrakiz]

I love how the more modern we get in this series the less answers we get and more pure unknowns. These are uncharted waters folks, make notes and keep thinking about these things, maybe yours will be the next great paper that will ind it's place in the halls of history.

[reidchave]

This was the first episode in the series that felt like a flood of new ideas and questions, without much rationalization or... you know, answering. I guess we're supposed to form beliefs about this stuff! I choose the neurological approach: identity comes from perspective, so nothing has an identity without an observer, but the more observers you have, the more identity isotopes you are likely to have (you also count as an observer of yourself).

[smashmaniac]

Bruce Wayne is Batman but Batman is not Bruce Wayne. It's like saying is a rectangle a square? No. A rectangle is not a square but a square is a rectangle.
Bruce Wayne = Square
Batman = Rectangle

[GustavoSilva-nyjc]

6:32 This also touch in something about how your beliefs affects your feelings, and "good lies" or "bad truths". And the idea of our judment being more based on perception than actual data.

[Ngamotu]

I absolutely love the subject of identity, if only because it challenges what it means to be you. And also because the Ship of Theseus is my favourite paradox/thought experiment.

[chrisray]

Is the Gardevoir I caught in Pokemon Ruby in 2003 that I transferred all the way to ORAS via system links and Pokebank still the same Gardevoir?

[heymrhimr]

This is my favorite Crash Course series at the moment, thank you to the Crash Course team for these interesting and enjoyable videos!